Hogan Lovells has hired a team of M&A and private equity lawyers from Baker McKenize in Paris as the firm continues to strengthen its global deal advisory business. 

The Paris team is made up of partners Matthieu Grollemund and Hélène Parent and five associates: Emmanuel Vrillon-Darcy and Gautier Valdiguié – who are both senior associates – and Madalina-Georgiana Asandului, Martin Noire and Charlotte Berger.

Its arrival adds to the firm’s global private equity hires last year in London, Shanghai, Frankfurt and the US. Grollemund’s and Parent’s practice focuses on M&A and private equity deals, with an emphasis on advising buy-out funds, venture funds and family offices across a wide-range of domestic and cross-border transactions.

In October Grollemund, Parent, Valdiguié and Berger advised Ÿnsect, which produces insects for animal feed, on its $372m series C funding, and in February members of the team advised private firm Eurazeo and Bpifrance on their investment in ManoMano, which specialises in home improvement e-commerce.

David Gibbons, global head of Hogan Lovells’ corporate and finance practice, said the two partners’ “reputation for excellence in technology and life sciences M&A, aligns with the strengths of the firm, and our own focus on highly-regulated industries”. 

Grollemund was co-head of Bakers’ Paris corporate department, where he had worked since 2017 after arriving from Dechert. Parent also joined Bakers in 2017 as a senior associate, being promoted to partner back in July.

Their arrival positions their new firm to improve its 2021 France M&A ranking after a good year in 2020, when it climbed from 26 to 12 in the Mergermarket’s table by value, advising on 39 deals worth $31bn.

Last June, private equity partners Ed Harris, Leanne Moezi and Adam Brown all rejoined Hogan Lovells less than a year after joining Paul Hastings. Harris and Moezi are based in London and Brown is based in Northern Virginia. In July the firm also hired private equity lawyers Don Williams, Tony Mou and Cheng Xu from Sheppard Mullin in Shanghai, with Nikolai Sokolov arriving in Frankfurt from Allen & Overy at the start of November.